Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch

January 17, 2010 – Acclimatizing at Plaza Canada

It’s Sunday, January 17th and we’re reporting from 5050m/16,500ft above sea level at Plaza Canada Camp which will serve as Camp 1 on our ascent of Aconcagua. The entire team came up here together today. We left about noon from Plaza de Mulas and it took three and a half hours to do the ascent.

Alain at Plaza Canada

We’ll stash some of our equipment here at Plaza Canada. As I’ve mentioned in earlier dispatches, Osvaldo, Juancho, Simon, Apolo and Nelson have already been carrying our food and fuel up to higher camps, but now we have some of our personal gear to stash here at our Camp 1.

Because we climb the mountain in stages, the entire group is looking good and are telling me they are feeling good with how they’ve acclimatized so far. We’ll return now to our base camp, Plaza de Mulas, to sleep one more night. The three nights we will have spent sleeping at an elevation of 4300m/14,100ft will provide a critical base level of acclimatization for us.

We still have wonderful medical support down at Plaza de Mulas. Alain, who has been puzzled by some of his physical symptoms, including his blood pressure, has gone back for checks each day. When we went back this morning, he got clearance to move up the mountain. It was interesting to see two professionals, Alain from Montreal, and the physician here from Argentina, discussing his condition and how he is dealing with his body as he attempts this remarkable challenge of ascending Aconcagua along with the rest of us.

Line reported to me on this ascent today that she felt much better than she did two years ago when she was on this same climb with Berg Adventures.

So here we go, climbing the mountain by stages. We’ll report to you each day as we continue the expedition.

The team hikes past Conway Rocks, a landmark on the way up to Plaza Canada

Our camp at Plaza de Mulas

Kelly in the medical tent

Left: Hugo ready for the carry up to Plaza Canada; Right: Isabelle sipping a mate de coca